News & Public Affairs

Hillsborough County Commissioners unanimously agreed to start planning how to improve transit during a meeting today in downtown. Despite more than a dozen speakers who were in favor of multi-modal transit, Commissioner Victor Crist said his vote doesn't necessarily mean he will support rail.

âIâm going to be judging them solely on the ROI â the return on investment. Iâm going to be looking at whether or not it remained an objective process. Iâm going to be scrutinizing it v...

Despite push-back from more than a dozen tea party activists, five Pinellas County commissioners said it was time to get moving on transit. At a meeting Tuesday in Clearwater, commissioners approved a 2014 ballot measure asking for an up to one cent sales tax increase to fund transportation. During a follow-up Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority board meeting Wednesday, transit officials started talking about how to allocate the money if voters approve the referendum.

As officials in Pinellas County gear up to expand transit options, Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe has said he wants to start talking about funding some enhancements on his side of the Bay. The Tampa Bay Times reports Sharpe said he wants to start building support for a 2014 referendum. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority CEO Brad Miller says thatâs a good thing.

âPSTA has worked very hard to try to develop our Alternative Analysis in a regional way and one of the cha...

Some transit officials want the Florida legislature to let localities increase their local gas tax as much as ten cents per gallon. A Sarasota planning official suggested several possible ways to boost revenue during the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority meeting Friday in Tampa.

Michael Howe, executive director for the Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization is pushing for a 2-cent increase to local gas taxes every year for the next five ...

Pinellas County Commissioners scheduled a vote on whether or not to put a sales tax referendum on the November ballot. The measure would likely increase county sales tax from 7% to 8, but commissioners could change that. Commissioner Norm Roche who is also on the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority Board voted last month to move the issue to County Commission, but was the only descending commissioner during todayâs discussion.

The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit authority is trying to make it easier for bus riders to figure out how to get from point A to point B. HART will launch a web-based bus information system for riders this summer. The program is called OneBusAway and was created with the help of USFâs Center for Urban Transportation Research. It will be available on smart phones, through the HART website and through telephone operators. HARTâs Information Technology Services coordinator, Shannon Ha...

Hillsborough Countyâs transit agency is looking at ways to revamp its system, mostly by improving services it already offers. At a workshop today, community stakeholders and HART officials laid out different funding options for new projects.

More and more people are ditching their wheels and hopping on buses. According to Jeff Seward, HARTâs chief financial officer, ridership is already up 3.5% over last year. That leaves a wide gap in bus service for the county that Seward said cou...